NHS research teams across the UK help DPUK’s FAST study reach another milestone. Here, Researcher Dishaa Sinha talks about her work with the network and the recruitment of participants.
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DPUK
During March 2025, a volunteer walked into a consulting room and had a blood sample taken for our FAST study. They would have been entirely unaware that had helped our blood biomarker project pass another milestone as the 1600th participant.
Getting volunteers for research studies can sometimes be difficult, but FAST (Feasibility and Acceptability Study of Scalable Biomarkers of Brain Health) is heading at impressive speed towards its goal of recruiting 2,500 participants. It’s achieved this by engaging a growing number of NHS sites taking part. So far, the total is 27, but there are still more to come in Scotland and Northern Ireland. With such encouraging progress, the target seems far less daunting than it did at the start a few years ago.
Each volunteer makes a 12-month commitment, with blood samples collected during two in-person visits to a nearby centre (at the baseline, then at 12 months) as well as three rounds of remote (digital) cognitive tests at baseline, mid-way (6 months), and 12 months. Their experiences are central to the project’s outcomes since as participant feedback is helping to refine the test process, allowing the FAST team to check that its procedures and study methods are both practical and effective.
As Dr Ivan Koychev, the Chief Investigator explains:
“FAST is investigating whether blood biomarkers and remote cognitive tests can be effectively scaled for dementia screening. The aim is to better understand if these methods are both feasible and acceptable to implement at a large-scale across the UK. We are looking at attitudes towards dementia risk screening, using both digital tests and blood tests.”
The findings inform a much larger nationwide study of blood biomarkers for dementia and memory disorders.
FAST is also exploring how biomarkers like neurofilament light (NfL) and phosphorylated tau-217 (p-tau217) are linked to memory performance and dementia risk, helping pave the way for more accessible, early detection of dementia in the future. Knowing what works efficiently and effectively will be of great importance to the NHS when it comes to introducing blood biomarkers.
Ivan Koychev’s team (Dishaa Sinha, Nishat Tahira and Shivani Suresh) work from the Psychiatry Department at the University of Oxford where they are liaising with each of the centres and coordinating the processing of tests and recording the results.
The team knows it is the volunteers and NHS research teams across the country who have made all the difference in delivering more than 1,600 people to the study. Their involvement is helping to shape the future of dementia research and detection.
As we continue this important research, we look forward to the next steps and the exciting discoveries ahead. People’s contributions are already making a significant impact, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds.
Dishaa Sinha